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Sunday, July 29, 2012

Checking In With the Chicken

If you don’t
read the news and you aren’t on Facebook, perhaps you haven’t heard about what’s
going down with the Chick-fil-A controversy.
Let me give you a re-cap.

Chick-Fil-A is a
“Christian” fast food chain that sells chicken.
And they have lots of advertising
signs along most major highways sporting cows advocating the consumption of chicken. Cute.
Everyone loves cows.

However, they’ve
more than once garnered national attention with their openly anti-gay
agenda. And yes, I use the word agenda
because it’s not just that the president, Mr. Cathy, openly says he and his family
and his company support a biblical view of marriage - that would certainly be
his prerogative to believe and even share his beliefs in this lovely free
country that we live in. However, he and
his company’s charitable arm, Winshape, have donated almost two million dollars to “Christian”
organizations whose mission is, in part, to “heal” people from being gay. Not $2million to Christian organizations like
Compassion International, World Vision, Bread for the World, etc. $2million to organizations that utilize
“anti-Gay therapy.” That’s an agenda.

So there’s been
a host of meme, some of it funny, some of it sad, flooding social media sites
and there have been several articulate responses from people (probably
“Christians”) about why it’s ridiculous to communally or personal boycott
Chick-fil-A. And truthfully, it is not
to Chick-fil-A or Mr. Cathy that I respond today, it’s to these other people
weighing in on whether or not to buy that crispy fried white meat on a white
bun with crunchy waffle fries (as if the healthiness factor weren’t enough to
enlighten you).

The tagline for
one article I read stated: Do we really want a country where people won't do
commerce with those who have beliefs different than their own? To which I
respond…

One: Yes.

Two: This isn’t about beliefs.

Three: Welcome to living out your
Christian faith.

Stick with me on
this one.

In case you
missed the paragraph above when I mentioned the two million dollars donated to
“pro-family, anti-gay” organizations, Chick-fil-A owners aren’t just anti-gay
for themselves & their personal families.
They put their money where their mouth is and support agencies that seek
to turn people straight. We typically call acts like that hate crimes. I sign petitions against them in foreign countries. Just because “Christians” in America aren’t
raping women to turn them straight, I’m not sure that sending teenagers to camp
where they are indoctrinated and brainwashed to find people of the opposite gender
sexually attractive is much better.

And if you think
I’m on some far and away diatribe against freaks named Fred Phelps and no one really tries to turn people un-gay, let
me enlighten you. I had a roommate who
was gay (I’ve had several, actually).
But the one to whom I’m referring has “Christian” parents who don’t
believe that homosexuality is a viable Christian option for humans, or
specifically, “Christians.” They attended
a seminar this year on how to turn your child un-Gay. Wow.
Kudos to my former roommate for still loving her parents and hanging out
with them and buying them Christmas presents.
There’s not enough therapy in the world that would get me through that.

But that
happened. This year. In my house.

I’m
digressing. My point is that yes,
Americans who believe in the bill of rights, and love that America was built on
freedom, have every right to boycott
a food chain that spends MILLIONS of dollars donating to organizations that not
only seek to politically deny people basic human rights, but to turn them into something
they’re not.

“Do we really
want a country where people won't do commerce with those who have beliefs
different than their own?”

Beliefs, no. Agendas, yes.

Let’s turn the table. Let’s
pretend like the president of Chick-fil-A was “Muslim” instead of
“Christian.” Let’s say that he donated
two million dollars to organizations that strove to politically oppress the
rights of slaves in Muslim families: ma
malakat aymanukum. No, wait, let’s keep to the topic of
altering sexuality so we’re on level playing field… how about this hypothetical
Muslim president of Chick-fil-A donated almost $2 million to “Muslim” organizations supporting female circumcision? What if he and Winshape gave money to organizations seeking to politically continue suppressing the rights of
women (to not have this done to them) or donated to organizations that were actually
performing female circumcision on infants, children and teenage girls?

Would you want to boycott Chick-fil-A if the owner said he believed in
a Qu’ran-based definition of family – one where the man is the head and the
women are guaranteed to be pure? Yeah,
me too.

And that’s the kicker, you guys.
It’s our right to boycott restaurants, clothing stores, even industries
if we disagree with them, especially if they have agendas. It’s like, the American dream.

Not only that, but it makes us human.

It makes us human to not just live by convenience or via hedonistic cravings
for fried chicken. It makes us human
when we think about what we do and how it affects the people around us.

So, no, I’m not going to shop at WalMart when I know they overpower
local businesses and don’t always treat their employees fairly with regard to
wages and benefits (when the CEO and WalMart families have more money than God). I’m not going to buy clothes from Nike when I
know they’re using sweatshops employing teenage girls at 14 cents an hour. And I’m not going to eat at Chick-fil-A when
I know they donate millions of dollars to organizations that politically seek
to stifle gay rights and hold conferences to turn people straight.

That’s my right. And thank God I
live in America where the government can’t force me to shop at Wal-Mart or wear
Nike or eat Chick-fil-A. Neither can the
government tell me where to go to church or how to practice my faith or how
many times a day I should pray.

And thank God I live in a country where compassionate, thoughtful,
people of faith seeking to live holistic lives can put their money where their
mouths are and choose to shop or not to shop at stores whose
integrity they can get behind or find severely lacking.

Quite frankly, I wish there were more people in this nation and in this
world who think that what we eat, what we buy, and how we treat other people matters.

Because if your going to be a person of faith, it does matter. And it matters a lot to me because I do call
myself a Christian. In fact, I am an
ordained Baptist minister. And I don’t
believe there is a biblical definition on family, and if there is, I’m not
interested in living by it. I’ve never
been a fan of levirate marriage, pologomy, or arranged marriages. And if you want to play the New Testament
card, Jesus never once mentions homosexuality.
But that’s a blog for another time.
Oh wait, I already wrote that one.

So I say, boycott on, America.
Whether you’re religious or not, live by your convictions and when you
see an agenda or policy you can’t get behind, don’t. Stand it front. And stand with your sign held high.

P.S. I imagine if I were a Muslim Iman, I would believe sinilarly to what I currently belive as a minister about Christianity, that Islam promotes the notion of absolute equality of all humanity. Female circumcision is in no way shape or form the norm for Islam - let me be clear - I was just trying to use another religious, sexist example of an atrocity in culture.

P.P.S. Want to know more about not buying from sweatshops: check this out. Or this.

no proof and speeking from the mind. No proof. Not true. Just like everyone to try and down play Christians. Nice get off your high horses and get real. Christians are for all people because of the fact that the penilty of our sin is death going to hell and being seperated from christ. If you understood that then you would not be fighting so hard to point out all of peoples faults. Christians would do anything for other people. The problem that everyone always sees and comments about is that we are all still sinners and will always fall. We are not perfect we all are damaged goods. Thank God for Jesus and that sacrifice he made so that I can be in Heaven not Hell with most of the world. Sad you guys have closed minds. Maybe should look at your lives.